


Viral

by mrhiddles



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Cannibalism, Infection, M/M, Nuclear Fallout, not zombies, people are tagging it as zombies but nowhere does it have people coming back to life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 16:52:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhiddles/pseuds/mrhiddles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor almost calls for him to stop. He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like any of it and he’s afraid but he doesn’t know why.</p><p>Anything can be beyond that door.</p><p>But this is their new world and so he stands and follows his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My favorite genre to read is post-apocalyptic worlds/infection scenarios, and I just haven't ever seen any Thorki AU's that involve those themes to a large extent. Especially not in a modern setting. (Because I am a sucker for them.) I wanted to write an infection AU but felt it needed something more demanding for the timeline.
> 
> Based loosely on the fallout described in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". As I rounded 8k I realized it has small influences of the movie "Carriers" as well. (A movie about two brothers fighting to survive ha haaa it hurts I recommend watching it, it's wonderful.)
> 
> I apologize for any errors in the science described. I was reading through a lot of microbiology websites and researching "The Viral Storm" by Nathan Wolfe. Something I've had on my shelf for a few years and it finally came in handy.

“Think it’s safe?”

“There could be food,” Loki tells him. “We’re running low.”

Thor squints up through the hazy murk of grey fog and lets his sight linger on the shuttered windows and patched door. Bolted shut with plywood with nails that fit snug against the wood. It’s the only one they haven’t been through on this street. With good reason.

There’s blood staining the cement to the left, by a bench long mutated into splinters and chunks for spare firewood. Thor can imagine what happened there. The door has nails sticking sharp-end out and the knob has been worn down to the brass. There’s large chunks of wood missing from the front of it, and it’s been built on again and again. The cement of the walls is falling apart, but someone has obviously stuffed what brick they can find in the holes to keep it somewhat whole.

Looters have targeted this place before.

It’s not unlike their own.

“We go,” Loki says beside him. He’s already stepping forward. Thor sees he has his knife ready in hand.

Thor grabs his wrist, feeling the bone, and yanks him back. He bullies Loki behind him, blocking his path, and turns to face him.

“We wait. We watch.” Thor taps his own ear and points to the fortress behind him. “We listen.”

Loki shrugs out of his grasp and adjusts his jacket. It’s a withered old thing from a high school student they’d found a month back. Thor had watched as Loki shrugged it off the back of the decaying—not rotting—corpse. It’s held up well against the winds.

Loki just stares at him, then flicks his eyes to the house.

“There could be salt.”

“What good is salt without meat?”

“There could be meat. Steak. Some fucking candles,” he hisses in Thor’s face. But Thor knows he’s won because Loki is turning and walking away.

They go back to their little patchwork home down the street and around the corner.

\--

Loki calls them raids. Loki says they’re like the Vikings of old, come to reclaim the land owed to them.

He laughs whenever he says it.

Thor doesn’t like thinking like that.

Loki doesn’t say it often.

\--

Thor had been in class when it happened. Loki had been at work, on the verge of a large promotion. It was a week away from Thor’s thirty-fifth birthday. He’d been going back to school for a second degree. A useful one. Sports only took you so far.

He’d been in the middle of scratching answers down on a physics test when the power shut off. The lights just went dull, fading to nothing. There had been laughter, because it was just perfect, wasn’t it? The professor had tried flicking the switch but no luck. The landlines were useless.

Thor knew there was something wrong when he tried his cell and it was dead.

The others had checked their phones and found them dead as well and Thor could only think of the horror scenarios Loki would muse about over dinner. Panic was welling slowly in his gut.

Because he wasn’t with Loki. Loki could be knee deep in some germ and he’d never know. Loki’s lab was in the next state and it was hours before he’d see him, even with a phone to call and double check.

As the panic drifted and surged throughout the rest of the class; confused muttering, frightened whispers, Thor only held his cell in a death grip and willed his heart to calm.

Class had been dismissed after two hours of being huddled together in the theatre and the main auditorium. The entire student body was sitting with forced calm, and some just simply up and left. But Thor wanted to know. He wanted information. He wanted to be sure of _something_.

The staff knew nothing. The school was let out.

Thor went home and waited. Nothing worked; not appliances, not the water, not the heat. Thor stood in front of their fridge and stared at the measly three bottles of water and it was then the fear started to settle.

Loki had the car.

Loki showed up three hours later—just as the sky started to fade and flashed once, twice—Loki was shoving water jugs and packages of surgical masks in Thor’s arms, people outside were screaming on their lawns—three times.

Then it went dark.

\--

The raiding started almost immediately. Those who hadn’t driven out of town turned to invading other homes, breaking the windows of convenience stores. Thor and Loki had been in the chaos of a grocery store the second day. They saw guns shoved in people’s faces for things as ridiculous as fruit roll-ups. It was nearly unfathomable.

It was when Loki first held his knife towards someone who threatened to take their cart full of dried food. Thor had his hands full with the last four water jugs.

Their car had been taken first.

They started boarding their windows. Collecting locks and chain to secure their front door.

It had been an ongoing project ever since.

\--

Thor had always thought it would be Loki’s lab to end the world.

Loki worked at a branch of the main CDC. They lived together along the border of Florida.

Loki was being promoted, going to work more and more for the main office and he was making a good living. A _really_ good living. Thor’s brother had been right straight out of high school; microbiology was a good career choice. Viruses never went anywhere, they simply latched on and mutated and grew. A job until the end of his days. He made six figures and he was two years younger than Thor.

He still stayed with Thor. In their tiny apartment in a small suburban neighborhood, a town so little and boring even Thor had trouble finding things to do.

Thor asked Loki why, once.

Loki worked with cells. He worked with insects on his free time. He was training under someone at the CDC in Atlanta to become an ID specialist. Eventually, he’d be able to transfer anywhere, even Europe. Loki always talked about Sweden.

Thor didn’t always understand a lot of the terminology Loki threw around but he found it interesting and he knew enough to understand that what Loki was doing was dangerous. As dangerous as jobs come. Virology.

“It will always start small. Too small to see. Unicellular could evolve to a colony in the blink of an eye with the right host, and I’m on the verge of breeding a new strain. It could combat all kinds of diseases. It has the potential to eliminate cancer!” he would tell Thor at three in the morning. “I’m practically up to my elbows in work. I can’t leave now.”

 _Now_.

Thor always went back to that word.

\--

“Your shoes holding up?” Thor asks.

“They’re leather boots, Thor. There’s at least another year in them.”

The soles are wearing and Thor knows it’s a lie. He would even dare to call it a hopeful one, but he knows Loki is not a hopeful creature. They both know Loki was lucky to find them in the first place, over a year ago.

Thor picks at the top of the can of beans he holds. It’s empty and smells like dry shit but he’s nearly licked it clean. Loki’s had his can empty long before Thor did. Thor clicks the tin lid back and forth, focusing on the sound, thinking of what wires he could switch to make the heater upstairs work if only the battery was juiced. Useless.

“Come here,” Thor says, setting the can down.

Loki stays where he is. He watches Thor over their poor excuse of a fire and falls asleep sitting up against the wall, knees pulled to his chest with a ratty, threadbare blanket around his shoulders.

Thor feels his eyes ache, his chest go tight. But he hasn’t cried in years.

\--

“We should try again,” Loki murmurs the next morning. He’s peering out the small triangle of light peeking through their boarded up windows, the only moniker of time they have without going outside. His mask is around his neck, covering the curve of his chin.

“I don’t like it. It’s fortified. Whoever is in there, knows what they’re doing.”

“Then we fight.”

“No,” Thor says.

Loki drops the subject.

\--

“Maybe it was me,” Loki says abruptly. They’ve just passed the familiar remains of what used to be their neighbor. Just the tiniest bit of bone and dust now, surrounded by bushes.

They don’t know what happened to rest of the bones. People got desperate fast. What was considered food and considered death began to blur as the days did, as the light and dark sagged against one another. The new nature of their world.

It’s morning. Thor can tell by the way the light only just barely peeks through the molten haze the sky has become. Loki kicks at the icy pavement as they walk.

“You know that’s not true.”

“But it is. Maybe I caused the end of the world after all.”

Thor stops walking and Loki with him. He turns slowly, balance idling on the ball of his heel and he doesn’t meet Thor’s eyes.

“You know that isn’t true, brother. You’re careful. You were careful for the last fifteen years before it went dark.”

“They were so adamant. I rushed to go hose my suit down. I was clumsy with the slides. I didn’t lock in the code correctly. I can’t even remember.” The laugh he gives is broken. “I was too excited to show them my work. The new strain. To send it off to them.”

Thor sees Loki’s eyes are dark, focused at a point somewhere far beneath the ground, perhaps even the earth itself.

“I killed us.”

Thor puts his arms around his brother and holds him there, in the street. He doesn’t know what Loki means. Loki doesn’t talk about the past.

He kisses the corner of Loki’s mouth and there’s no one around to see.

\--

Loki doesn’t speak for days. There are times when it’s happened in the past but Thor has always managed to bring his brother back. But this time it’s different and Thor is shamed to say he can’t exactly pinpoint why.

Loki watches the house down the street but no one ever comes out.

No one ever goes in.

\--

Thor thought it had been nuclear. Somewhere far away. The flashes had no other explanation. Thunder boomed and lightning leapt, but this had made no sound—at least not where they were at the time— had not threaded through the sky. And the entire sky had lit up like it was early afternoon, bright and sunny. But it had been too cold, too bright, too quick, too hovering.

The following weeks the skies had filled with haze and death and people began to foam at the mouth and collapse in the street and rot. Loki hadn’t spoken for a month.

Three times and Thor hadn’t ever thought it would be the last he’d see of the sky.

\--

Loki never talked about it.

But he’d gotten home early that day. Had food and water already packed in the car.

Loki had known something would happen.

And the theories Thor has don’t add up. Nuclear fallout shouldn’t have made people foam at the mouth and die, rotting so quickly the veins in their arms and faces went black. It made sense for blotting out the sun.

And then Loki was so sure he _knew_. He knew something.

\--

Thor doesn’t think on it because he knows it will drive him mad.

The past is the past. Nothing can change that now.

\--

The last they’d heard of their father, he’d been in Sweden. He was an architect. Odin enjoyed sweeping away dust and moving stone to learn the past and think toward the future. What his sons would leave behind.

Frigga had been with him and they’d been happy, at least.

\--

“Truth or dare?” Thor asks him as he holds their last can of beans over a meager fire. The flames are low and sputter weakly but it’s enough to give their flesh some color. Thor can see the green in Loki’s eyes for the first time in a while.

“Dare,” Loki murmurs. He’s looking into the flames.

Thor changes the can between his hands, back and forth, as it heats. The hearth they gather around is a metal cage tipped on its side in a cat box with leaves and newsprint bunched up. It’s worked often enough.

Loki never says truth.

“I dare you,” Thor says, taking the beans off the flames and setting it in front of Loki. “To eat this whole can and find one bad thing about it.”

Loki glares at him.

“It’s our last one.”

“You said dare. Are you a liar?”

Loki huffs and closes his eyes, because they both know he is. But he never goes back on their little game and so he takes the can in a gloved hand and stabs his knife into the top, popping the tin enough to poor the contents in his mouth.

Thor smiles as he watches Loki’s throat bob as he swallows the food. He’s been looking too thin. Far, far too thin.

“The one bad thing is it’s fucking cold beans,” Loki says around a mouthful of them.

Thor chuckles as he warms his hands. He hums to himself. It fills the silence and Loki’s never told him to stop.


	2. Chapter 2

“Fuck…” Loki mutters the next morning, fingers prodding at his chin.

Thor is lying down, pack pillowing his head. He rises to his elbows and watches as Loki lifts the razor to his chin again, holding it with both hands.

“Fuck, _gah_ —” It drops to the ground and Loki just stares at it. Then he snaps and punches the wall and this is when Thor finally gets up. “Fuck!” he half shouts.

He’s crouched and clawing at the ground, gathering the broken razor in his hands. The last blade snapped on his skin then fell out. When he stands back up, Thor sees he’s cut his chin, his knuckles are scraped. Blood rains in a thin strand down his neck and Thor reaches to wipe it away. Loki is shaking.

Loki jerks when Thor touches his skin, but then he relaxes as Thor moves to firmly grasp his neck in one hand, the other wiping his sleeve across the cut.

“I think I still have a band-aid somewhere. This is deep,” Thor says. “I can tear some cloth for your hand.”

“I broke it. It was the last one.”

Thor knows Loki means the razor.

Thor watches Loki’s eyes flit around everywhere but his face, then he finally meets Thor’s gaze. Thor holds it for a long moment, thumb smoothing the cut over and over. He ends up smearing the blood and has to clean it off again.

“Now we’ll see who grows the better beard, yeah?”

Loki shakes his head weakly. It’s such a small movement, Thor can hardly see it. He can only feel it where he holds him. Loki’s breath rushes quick and cool across his face and then he’s shrugging away, out of Thor’s hold.

“We need to do a run soon.”

“I know.” Thor is already at his pack, looking for a band-aid. Anything. He’s careful not to get hurt, in case Loki does. Their supplies are too few and far between, and far too precious to waste on himself.

He finds one and grins as large as he can as he goes back over to Loki. Loki’s eyes are welling up but Thor ignores it. He knows not to point it out. Loki always hated him for it when they were boys.

He tears cloth from the hem of his own shirt, to Loki’s disapproving frown, and wraps Loki’s knuckles. Thor takes his time wrapping the fingers he holds. He hasn’t been able to hold Loki’s hand in a long time. He rubs it between his palms, as if he’s warming Loki.

“We’ll need to leave soon.” Loki is watching Thor’s face as he moves to concentrate on placing the bandage over the cut on Loki’s chin. He lingers too long and they both know it. “Thor, we’ll need that house.”

“I know,” Thor says, voice low. He goes still and clasps both hands behind Loki’s neck.

“Thor.”

“I know.”

Thor releases Loki with a sigh and goes back to lying on his makeshift cot. Loki spends the day watching the window.

\--

Loki always grows a moustache before the rest of his beard fills out. It makes his glare seem less severe and Thor always found it funny that it never changed after puberty passed them by.

Loki catches Thor giggling as he walks around the next couple days and he grumbles to himself.

But then he is quick to bring reality back.

“Truth or dare, Thor?”

“Truth,” Thor replies, because he’s always chosen truth.

“Tell me the odds of our survival.”

“Loki…”

“No, I want to know. Your projection of our current situation, a week, two weeks, a month into the future, it’s vital to me. Tell me, brother, how likely are we to find food?”

“We’ve always managed before.”

Since the beans, they’ve lived off a granola bar Loki found in the next house over, they’ve picked it apart in the barest increments using Loki’s knife. It’s as hard as a brick.

“That is a truth of the past. Confess to me our future.”

Thor can’t and Loki knows that.

“I thought so.” And it’s cruel, the way he says it.

Thor takes Loki’s place by the window that day. Loki doesn’t speak to him.

\--

Thor goes out to relieve himself the next morning and sees grey snow falling soft from the sky.

He sighs and finishes up before heading back inside.

“It’s snowing,” Loki says. He has his pack secured tight on his back, straps tight on his arms and waist. He’s holding his knife.

“Today then.”

Loki nods and gives Thor a small smile. They’re so rare these days Thor yearns to have a camera in his hands. But he settles for committing it to memory.

They have to leave before the snows come.

\--

It’s hardly an hour before they’re ready to leave. Thor meets Loki out front and catches him reciting something from their first college days.

“Order, family, subfamily, genus, species, order, family, subfamily, genus…”

It had been a study tactic because Loki had trouble remembering what seemed the simplest of taxonomy back in high school Biology courses. He repeats it every now and again and it always makes Thor wish for what was before.

Loki realizes he isn’t alone. He turns and meets Thor’s eyes.

“Ready, brother?”

Thor nods and they bring up the surgical masks to fit snug over their mouths. They begin walking.

\--

Loki nearly left once.

Thor understood but at the same time he couldn’t.

“I’m your brother,” he’d said.

Loki had stared at him, something vital missing in his gaze. It had been the first time they’d seen real fear, a corpse with a telling missing limb, crude gashes marking the end of the inner thigh.

And it stayed with Loki, latching onto his skin, his cells, like one of his viruses he so loved.

“Not really. You know that.”

Thor had walked over to him, took his arm in hand. He’d squeezed hard enough to bruise.

“That doesn’t matter. It never made any difference to me. You’re my brother. You’re Loki.”

“It’s my fault, Thor. My fault.”

It had been a house two blocks over. They agreed not to venture that far again unless it was absolutely necessary.

Thor dreams of it every now and then and it makes him go quiet. Loki isn’t used to it. To Thor’s silences. It had stayed with them both, in very different ways.

Every time Loki’s words seem to gather weight as he remembers them, held aloft in the past by invisible tethers tied to invisible hands.

\--

They have another game they play to pass the long hours they walk around their old neighborhood. A habit.

“Sunflower seeds.”

“Whipped cream.”

Thor deliberately slows so Loki follows suit. They amble down the street they’ve walked so many times before. They know most of the houses on this street are empty. They’ve managed to live off them for years since this whole thing started.

It became easier when their neighbors started vanishing, started dying.

“Hot professors,” Thor says.

“I should have said that, you were in college last. I hadn’t seen a hot professor in over a decade at that point.”

Thor nudges Loki in the arm. “Fine then. Shaving cream.”

“Twinkies.”

“Doesn’t count,” Thor reminds him.

“Shit.” He pauses and they stare at the resident bone meal as they pass it. “Lube.”

“Damn, I was going to say that next.”

“Have to think of something else you miss,” Loki says on a smirk.

Thor thought this game would devour them. Would make them miss the past too much to focus on surviving their future. But they only start it up when they walk and so it’s safe, for the most part.

They never talk about it outside of their shit excuse of a game.

“Internet.”

“Ooh, nice,” Loki tells him. “Telescopes.”

“Those still exist. We just need to find one.”

“Which is exactly why it belongs in the past.”

“Say that again the next time I take you to a hobby shop.”

Loki’s gone quiet again and Thor fears he’s stepped too far. But Loki is biting his lip, thinking.

“Coffee.”

“Soda,” Thor says immediately, relief staining his voice.

“Vodka.”

“Marshmallows.”

“Cheese.”

“Still possible,” Thor says.

“Possible but highly unlikely.”

They continue like this for the next ten minutes until they reach the sidewalk across the street from the house. They crouch behind an overgrown bush and watch silently.

\--

Loki’s stomach is growling but he makes no move to get up and head for the house. It’s still locked up to the rafters and Thor won’t be surprised if someone is waiting on the other end with three shot guns and a bottle of antique wine. He’s certain not even the end of the world could extinguish whoever put so much time into that house. Even the upstairs windows are boarded up. Thor can see the traces of white spray paint on the roof. He’s forgotten what it used to say, but he knows it had been a warning.

It’s another long few minutes of Loki’s stomach gurgling beside him and then his stomach goes off, a long groan of hunger that has Thor huffing at himself. Loki finally stands, knife poised tight at his side.

“Come on,” Loki says. Then he’s walking.

Thor almost calls for him to stop. He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like any of it and he’s _afraid_ but he doesn’t know why.

Anything can be beyond that door.

But this is their new world and so he stands and follows his brother.

\--

Loki’s held his knife so close since it started that Thor thinks he could have married it in another life.

Thor has a hammer from their childhood. Odin always used it to hang up framed photos of their family and Thor always thought of his parents when he saw his father holding it.

They don’t have cause to use them that often aside from prying open cases or cupboards or cans of food they’re lucky enough to find.

But, sometimes, they have other uses.

Thor knows not everyone who still lives is so lucky.

Most people they come across have only scraps of clothing thrown on their backs. Cardboard. Most live going from house to house, squatting and squandering what little light the sky offers during the day.

Thor likes to think the murk of the haze has thinned since it started, but he knows it’s a foolish thought and untrue at that.

They found a gun once. There were no bullets so they left it where it was.

Their house has been raided before. It’s when they started building up and boarding the windows, proofing it against the winds and the people who enjoyed looking for a fight.

Most people see the signs. Most see the nails in the walls and the boards blocking out all meager light and the spikes in the lawn. Most know to stay away and not to bother. Most aren’t willing to risk their life for what could maybe be food; what’s more likely to be death.

Thor and Loki are not most people.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief homophobic language.

Loki’s breath is harsh against his mask as he leans against the wall near the farthest left window. He catches Thor’s eyes where Thor stands opposite, beside the other window. Thor shakes his head, no. There’s no spots to see through to inside.

Thor moves to the front door and takes a deep breath. They’ve both thinned down since the last time they had to do something like this. And even if he had the strength to kick down the door, the nails make it impossible. He tries to map a solution for what seems too long. His heart is hammering.

Then Loki is beside him, muffled voice whispering into his ear. “Want to try the back?”

“We haven’t checked the back.”

Loki tilts his head, his eyes narrowing in what Thor knows is a smile beneath his mask. He says, “Let’s check now, then.”

“Hell of a hobby you’ve found yourself,” Thor murmurs but Loki takes it in stride.

Loki enjoys this. It’s possibly the only thing he enjoys anymore.

They round the left corner because the right has trash cans and plant growth too thick to walk through. The backyard is empty save for being filled with tires, of all things. Dozens of them, all fit into towers in rows. Some have spilled into the centers from the winds. Loki is eyeing the corners of the yard while Thor tips over the topmost tires, the ones obscuring large spreads of space. The ground is torn up all around them.

He hums when he sees mouse traps, rusted and some screwed crudely back together, at the bottom of the towers. They’re all empty, save for bits of sponge and what looks like coal. Whoever set them is trying to fool the rats. The ground is torn up here too.

“For food,” Thor says quietly.

Loki looks over and approaches. He crouches and looks at the bottom. He palms at the lowest tire and pulls at it a bit.

“The top two are nailed together, then nailed to the ground with planter spikes. The ground is dug for burrows. Good way to escape the storms if there were any animals to escape them.”

“Smart though.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Loki straightens and adjusts his grip on his knife. He clicks his thumbs and hikes up his gloves. His eyes are wide, bright. Loki is full of life and Thor thinks he wouldn’t trade Loki his little ventures for anything.

Thor hasn’t been able to invoke such vitality from Loki in a long, long time.

Thor turns and spies the back door. It’s plain, and there are only boards in it. No nails are sticking out.

Thor takes up his hammer and flips the head around, prying at the nails of the boards that are holding the door closed.

“Be ready,” Thor whispers.

Loki takes a step back and lines himself against the side of the wall, across from Thor.

Thor easily pries the nails out, one at a time. He gathers them all in his other hand and then sets them in his pocket. You never know, he thinks.

His hand alights on the knob, and his breath feels too hot against his nose within the trap of his mask. Loki’s breathing has gone as quiet as he’s able but Thor can still hear the rush of it. Can still see the way the vein in his brother’s neck pulses as he waits.

They lock eyes and Loki nods.

Thor squeezes the knob, and turns it. The door swings in, loose on its hinges but quiet enough not to warrant their entrance.

It still feels like it’s the loudest thing in the world.

\--

They’re in the kitchen. Beyond that is a wide open space, fit with couches and a television with a cracked screen. The walls are split in places, from what Thor thinks must have been fists. But he isn’t sure. Apart from the living room there is a hallway and he doesn’t know how much it could be hiding. He guesses three rooms at best.

Thor flicks a finger at the staircase just outside of the kitchen, and Loki knows his task. He stands just at the threshold of the two rooms and waits as Thor takes stock.

The counters are covered in a fine film of dark ash. It’s spread around like silk and Thor has an itch to wipe it away. He doesn’t. He opens the top cupboards delicately, slowly. There are plates and cups, ceramic. Everything is ceramic. He brings one down and weighs it in his hand before setting it silently on the counter.

The counters are empty, but the sink is filled with books.

He trusts Loki to keep an eye out for him, so he crouches and begins searching through the drawers. He finds more books and startles when he sees cereal boxes glaring brightly up at him. But the moment he fingers at the edge, he realizes they’re been flattened, stacked atop each other. He doesn’t know why.

Thor doesn’t take anything. But he does find a sledgehammer under the sink and he feels no guilt in grabbing it up.

If there are still people here, and it turns bad, they’ll have the advantage of at least an extra weapon.

He checks the fridge last, finding dust on the sides and the top of it, but the handle is clean. Inside, he finds empty liquor bottles and a single jug of water, with enough in it that Thor’s mouth waters just looking at it. There’s small packages of something that’s wrapped in torn, stained cloth on the bottom shelf beside it and he wants to check what it is. But first, they need to see the rest of the house.

If people are still living here and they don’t want to be bothered, he won’t take their things. If they’re dead, it’s free game. If they attack, Thor won’t regret what comes of it.

He approaches Loki calmly, sliding around him, hand on his lower back. Loki is visibly pleased to see the sledgehammer Thor is holding.

Thor takes Loki’s spot and Loki goes to turn down the hallway. His steps are sure, more forward. Loki is calm and silent as he rounds the corners and steps quietly into the rooms. Thor can hardly hear him digging around. This has become a skill for him. Thor is always reminded of a hunter lacking only a bow and arrow.

Loki leaves the second room quick enough without even a glance back at Thor, and Thor suspects it must have been empty. He cheats a long look as Loki stops before the second doorway, just staring inside. Thor feels his stomach roll. It doesn’t feel right.

He surprises Thor by completely bypassing it.

Loki still steps with caution as he rounds the third doorway and so Thor knows that whatever Loki was staring at wasn’t the people who stayed here. There could still be trouble.

Loki is fast about the third room and comes out holding up three razors. It’s the bathroom, Thor realizes. Thor can tell Loki’s beaming beneath his mask.

“Clear,” Loki whispers when he’s beside Thor. He pockets the razors and starts stepping around to the front of the stair case.

Thor steps in front of him.

Sometimes, he thinks Loki is out for the fight, for the run-ins. They’re so rare as it is. But Thor refuses to let his brother charge blindly forth, forfeiting his life for the sake of a short-lived thrill.

Thor climbs up first, going so slow his thighs burn. Loki is right on his heels.

\--

The only warning they get is a minor creak of the floorboards. Then Thor’s vision snaps black and pain is blooming fresh and searing across his face.

He’s shoved out of the way and there’s a metal thud against the edge of the wall where he’d been standing. He can hear Loki grunting as he jabs his knife through the air. There’s a hasty cry and a yelp and Thor hears a body hit the floor.

“Loki!” Thor half-shouts, because he’s in pain and his heart is thundering too loudly to hear Loki’s voice, if he’s even speaking. He can’t tell who hit the ground.

There are hands on his sides, then his face and he’s being firmly manhandled into stillness.

Thor feels like crying in relief when he can hear Loki’s soothing _shhh_ just in front of him. All he manages is the familiar ache of his eyes.

Thor tries to open his eyes but it hurts. He fears he’s gone blind.

“It was a crowbar,” Loki says. “You’re bleeding so much.” His voice sounds small, but clear and Thor knows it isn’t good. It seems off somehow.

Loki is wiping at the skin just above his eyelid when he realizes what’s off. Loki’s mask is no longer obscuring his voice.

“Your mask—”

But then Thor can hear a second, gruffer voice coming from the floor.

“What? You couple a faggots looking to take an old man’s home? Huh!” He sounds pained, voice caught between grit and anger and he’s gasping. Sucking in huge gusts of air so Thor knows Loki stabbed him.

Loki turns around and Thor can just barely open his other eye. His vision is blurry and he can’t focus on more than Loki, on the mask hanging torn around his neck, and a shape on the floor.

“Are you alone?” Loki asks him.

“Fuck you,” the man gasps.

“Is there anyone else here?” Loki asks again, voice severe.

Loki crouches and nears the man’s face. The man spits at Loki and Loki grabs his throat with one hand. Thor can hear whimpering.

“No, no, God no I’m alone. I’ve been alone. I’ve been with her for years, I’m alone, oh, _oh_ …”

“What?” Thor voices to the air. But nobody answers him.

“Do you have any guns?” Loki’s voice sounds odd.

Thor sees the man toss his head, no.

Loki takes a deep breath and shifts his arm back quickly, elbow cutting through the air.

There is an ugly gurgle and the man goes quiet.

\--

Loki searches the top floor and finds no one else. He quickly comes back to Thor and helps him back down the stairs, trying to hurry Thor as much as he can into the bathroom.

“The guy is stocked to the roof compared to what we’ve seen the last few months. He has a medical kit.”

“You killed him?”

“What do you think.”

It’s not a question.

\--

“He had a hell of a swing,” Thor mutters as Loki tips the jug of water onto the cleanest towel he can find. It’s ratty, filled with holes and stained with mold but it does its job. A corner is dripping red, sogged through with Thor’s blood, by the end of it.

“He almost caved your head in.”

“Thank you,” Thor tells him. Thor allows himself to place his hands at Loki’s waist, thumbs pressing into thin hips through his jacket and layered shirts.

Loki smoothes a clean part of the rag over his eyebrow, his eyelid. Again and again. He washes Thor’s entire face and Thor feels his skin go almost tight with the feeling of being free of grime and gore.

Loki scrubs at Thor’s beard next; he can’t seem to stop himself. Then he dips as low as he can inside the collar of Thor’s shirt and scrubs at his neck and collarbones, his shoulders. He cleans Thor’s ears gently, slowly. He pours the water into a cupped hand and drags it through his hair, starting at the scalp and dragging carefully out to the ends.

Thor watches Loki’s face while he does it.

“I found razors. They’re still decent.”

“I saw. You can get rid of your porn ‘stache now.”

Loki huffs at him. Thor feels the breath brush his cheeks and he notices Loki hasn’t tried fixing his mask. They still have plenty at home, they were very careful.

“Want me to shave your beard?”

“Sure.”

“You’ll be cold,” Loki warns him.

“It’s fine, Loki.” His hands squeeze Loki’s sides just enough to assure his brother and so Loki sets in to work.

The scrape of metal burns his skin as Loki shaves him dry. The only source of relief is a few flecks of water Loki pours from the jug into the cap. It feels like it takes ten years, but eventually Loki smoothes his thumbs across Thor’s jaw and he can feel air touch his chin.

His skin is on fire, but the water is soothing. He takes the cap and drenches his fingers, rubbing the wetness around his face, not caring how he’s dripping it onto his shirt.

“You look twenty again.”

Thor knows it’s a lie.

“I feel like it,” he says.

“Look at you, brother,” Loki says, smile flickering brief and weak. “Going back in time and beating the world.”

\--

“How’s your head?”

“Decent. Sight’s still a little vague at the edges.” Thor stands straight and reaches to hug Loki; feel him against his chest, his presence, his existence, his _life_. But Loki shrinks away from him. He watches as Thor sighs and leaves the bathroom.

Thor stops at the threshold of the second room. The one Loki had stopped and stared into.

There’s a corpse lying on a small bed. The room is pink and there is mold reaching from the floorboards to the corners of the ceiling. There’s a rug with stars on it beneath the dresser in the corner.

It can’t be more than a few months old. Thor knows what they look like. The skin is black and rotted, like so many others.

“Granddaughter, I think.”

Thor says nothing. He stares until he feels Loki’s hand between his shoulders, urging him forward.

\--

Thor stays on the first floor while Loki goes through the upper floor. Thor hadn’t bothered going up to double check. He knows Loki will have a keen eye for anything they could use. And he knows there must be more than he can carry because Loki wordlessly takes Thor’s pack with him.

Loki comes back down with their packs and two more hanging from his arms. He’s grinning wide enough that it prompts a small smile from Thor too. It chases away the image of the girl in the room a few yards from him. Chases away the thoughts of what this family had gone through since it started.

Thor thinks it’s been more than six years, but he can’t be sure.

Loki hands him the two new packs and Thor is shocked to feel them so weighed down.

“He had tons of canned food. Just wait until you see. Come on,” Loki says, and then he’s heading towards the back door.

“Wait.”

Thor shoulders the two packs and goes to the fridge. He picks up one of the wrappings and feels something soft in his hand. He prods at it through the cloth, trying to discern the stain and he finds the surface yielding only so much. Firm.

The stain is a dark brown and it smells rancid.

Thor places it back in the fridge and closes it.

He wants nothing to do with it.

\--

Thor has to walk slow on their way back. Loki unlocks their door and hurries Thor inside as much as he is able without unbalancing him. The smell had sunk in Thor’s gut and stayed there as they left and he feels like he’s going to vomit any moment.

Loki is tumbling the packs on the floor, hastily gathering all of it into the center of their once-living room. The furniture had long ago been used for firewood or stolen, their blankets with it.

Thor only just hears Loki say he’s going back for more before he sees Loki taking three of the packs with him while opening the door.

Thor calls out, “Wait.” But Loki doesn’t hear him. Or he ignores him.

Either way, Thor ends up vomiting in the corner of their front lawn, long dead, and pacing the living room until Loki returns.


	4. Chapter 4

The second Loki is in the door Thor is on him. Loki had been carrying large bundles under his arms and Thor notices too late they’re blankets. He drops the packs and blankets out of shock.

Thor places a hand behind Loki’s neck and the other at his chest, then shoves him back against the door. Loki yelps, eyes flitting back and forth between Thor’s. It looks too close to fear to sit right in Thor’s gut and so he relaxes his hold slightly. But only just.

“Never. Again.”

Loki is shaking.

“We go together. You leave, I leave. You stay, I stay.” Thor’s voice trembles and he feels jittery. He hasn’t even managed to take off his mask, aside from tugging it up to empty the bile in his stomach earlier. “Don’t you do that to me again, brother.”

Loki doesn’t answer him so Thor shakes him. “Do you understand me, Loki?”

Loki’s nod is fast and jilted. But it’s enough for Thor. It’s enough.

Loki swallows hard, then waits until Thor releases him. Thor steps back, letting Loki pass him.

Loki shoves a pack against his stomach, vicious. Then goes to sit on the floor before his bounty, silent.

Thor is confused why it feels so bulky in his arms, but then he opens it and realizes. They’re books.

Loki isn’t looking at him. He’s organizing cans in neat rows, by type and preferences. He knows his and Thor’s favorites.

He wants to apologize, for his behavior.

But Thor isn’t sorry. He refuses to be.

\--

Thor sits across from him slowly and all Loki says in explanation is, “I saw you eyeing them in the sink. He had more upstairs in the bedroom. The blankets are clean; I made sure to shake them out.”

“Thank you.”

“Here,” he says instead. He tosses a can at Thor. Beans.

Thor scratches at his chin, amusement drowning away the tension for a moment.

He meets Loki’s eyes and finds his brother finally watching him. He’s smirking.

“I dare you.”

Thor laughs outright and goes to pull down his mask, finally remembering.

But then Loki holds up his hand, eyes wide. “Don’t!” And it’s almost a squeak, how it comes out.

“Loki, we’re home, it’s fine.”

“Thor, no.”

“Loki…” Thor says, laughter tapering off. Loki’s backing away, standing up with his hands still outstretched.

“Just, just wait. Alright? Just…fuck. Just wait.” He steps quickly into their bathroom.

Thor hears plastic tearing and his brother cursing under his breath. Dread is sinking in his gut and he remembers the old man spitting in Loki’s face.

He comes out finally, wearing a new mask that’s higher up on his face. Loki’s carrying the package of surgical masks in his hand. They had two more under the sink. He places it in the corner where he usually sleeps against the wall.

He won’t look at Thor now, and somehow it’s answer enough.

\--

“I thought you’d realized,” Loki says.

“We don’t know why people get sick. It could be the air for all we know.”

Loki huffs and shakes his head. He goes back to organizing the cans and doesn’t talk the rest of the night.

They eat without a fire and Thor respects the distance between them. They each limit themselves to two cans. One, because they both don’t favor shitting their pants in the middle of the night and two, because they still have wits enough to ration their new supplies.

\--

Neither of them can find sleep that night. The winds outside are howling so loud the walls and windows creak. It feels like their home is bending at the seams. Thor thinks of the rat traps and wonders if that is what he held in his hand earlier that day. He hopes it was only that.

His head aches and he knows he’ll be purple and blue in the morning. But it isn’t why he can’t sleep. Loki had brought back four blankets, two large ones wrapped around two thinner, felt ones. It’s still cold, but it’s better than they’ve had in a long time.

“Sushi,” He says to the dark.

It takes a long moment but the answer finally comes. “Ravioli.”

“Meat or Vegetarian?”

“I’d eat a cow raw at this point,” Loki says and Thor chuckles.

“Beer pong.”

“Sheep wool.”

“Petting zoos.”

“Children. Their laughter.”

Thor sighs and he can hear Loki shifting where he lies.

“I thought it would get you to move to Atlanta with me.”

“What?”

“I thought it’d be a way to travel the world. I thought I was doing the world good.”

Thor desperately wants to ask what he means. But he already half knows that it’s a continuation of the conversation they’ve been having pieces of for years. Loki is unlikely to humor him any answers to direct questions, so he stays quiet.

“I had nearly finished the strain. Sent samples abroad for more testing and the results were coming back mostly positive. They were trying to plan how to break it to the media. Cures, Thor. Cures. Not just molecular deterrents. This was warfare against the harshest diseases. I was excited about it. I was proud my work was finally going somewhere. That people in Russia, China, Germany, Norway…that they were looking at my slides and seeing it wasn’t all bullshit. But it wasn’t ready yet.”

Thor hears Loki shift again. Thor chances a glance at his brother and finds Loki staring across at him. He’s still wearing the mask.

“I killed us Thor.”

“No, Loki.”

Loki shuts his eyes briefly and Thor can see the glint of tears slide slow across his cheeks.

“You’re wrong. They liked my work too much. They held onto my samples. They brought in specialists who knew how to mold strains, how to work them into new shapes. How to fit them in a needle. How to distribute them through a faucet, how much to siphon into the sewers.”

Thor fights to steady his breathing. Fights to continue breathing.

“It always starts small, Thor.” His voice is thin and he closes his eyes. “Too small to see.”

Thor feels that he might be sick.

“They knew it would fix so many things. They knew it would cost them a lot of money. And what makes more than health care and costs even less to manufacture? What is more popular than medicine?”

“It’s not your fault, Loki,” Thor insists, because he must. But he isn’t so sure. It feels like Loki is slipping away from him.

“War,” Loki breathes, as if he hasn’t heard a word Thor’s said. “And what deters wars, Thor? What could possibly have a chance of fending off viral genocide?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer.

“Atom bombs. Hundreds. The age-old solve-all end-all. But what if they were too late,” he says. “What if it was released on accident? What if it was fucked from the very beginning and they had no way of telling, past a few slides of microbials slugging around and leaning on each other?”

“You didn’t kill us, Loki,” Thor tells him. He’s poised on his elbows, brows drawn together. He feels his eyes go wet and realizes he’s crying too. It feels like he’s not stopped weeping for years.

“I killed half of us. I prompted generals to nuke the rest. What difference does it make?”

Thor shakes his head, no.

“I almost killed you,” Loki says on a sharp breath.

Thor pushes himself to standing, his limbs stiff from the cold and walks to Loki. Loki curls in on himself and hides his face against the floor but Thor only moves behind him. He lies behind Loki and wraps an arm around his middle. He can feel his brother shaking. He’s never seen Loki sob.

“Please, Loki. Please.”

“I can’t. You can’t.”

Thor has his mask down and he wants more than anything to kiss the back of Loki’s neck. Just to feel him, feel what bare amount of warmth is left in the skin. But he doesn’t. Loki’s right; he can’t.

“You’re not sick.”

“You don’t know that.” Loki sucks in another sharp breath, his body convulsing as if he’s been plagued with terrible shivers. Thor manages to get his other arm under Loki’s neck and he curls his arm up, pillowing Loki’s head. Loki sags suddenly into him and clings at his arms, his hands.

“Let me hold you,” Thor whispers.

“I miss you. I miss you, Thor,” Loki rushes out, muffled through the mask.

“It’s been so long. It’s been such a long time. Please. It’s not your fault. We’re still here, we’re still alive.”

“I fucked up the world.”

Thor shushes him and cradles Loki’s head in the bend of his arm. “Please, turn over. I’ll put on my mask.”

Loki releases his arm and he tugs it up quickly before Loki is shifting around in his hold. He presses his face against Thor’s neck and soaks his collar with tears. Thor holds him tightly and they don’t say anything else for the rest of the night.

Exhaustion grips Loki and allows him to slip away into sleep. Thor is not so lucky.

He always thought it would be Loki’s lab to end the world.

Maybe he always knew, but never wanted to see.

Loki trembles in his sleep and so Thor holds him steady, murmuring soft memories and dreams to his brother for hours.

\--

Loki’s eyes are dull the next day. He stares into the distance and Thor often has to rub a thumb across Loki’s wrist to rouse him. Loki spends most of the day sitting cross-legged where they slept. He fingers the pages of the books he’d gathered, but Thor knows he’s not read a single word.

Thor makes Loki eat two more cans this morning. Mixed fruit and squared pineapple. The cold is good for the canned fruit and a welcome change. Loki feeds himself, a piece at a time, through the bottom of his mask. He forks the food in by the dull edge of his knife. His eyes shine when Thor steals a cherry from him, knowing it touched the knife he was eating off of.

“You’re so stupid.”

It makes Loki cry again and Thor moves to sit beside him, their thighs pressed together. The sounds of Thor chewing and Loki’s breathing fill the room.

\--

Sometime later, Loki’s sitting on their kitchen counter. Thor is watching out the tiny peephole of their window. Loki is fiddling with one of the razors he brought back. Thor sees him scratching at the hair that’s filling in around his chin and jaw.

“I can help you shave it,” he says from across the room.

“You know why you can’t do that. I’ll do it later. I don’t intend to die with a bloody moustache on.”

“Loki.”

Loki shrugs and keeps rubbing his fingers through the hair on his face. “This isn’t so bad actually. It’s a good warmer.”

“I used to call mine a face scarf. Remember?”

Loki chuckles. “How could I forget that piece of gold? Though it isn’t so far from the truth.”

“You look like a pale Jesus with a shitty goatee. Pale, party Jesus.”

“Fuck. I’m shaving it today.”

Thor only laughs and Loki pulls his mask back up.

\--

“I have five days. Maybe a week. It’s not meant to set in immediately. At least not from what we’ve seen. The insects I tested the strain on always died. The pigs had greater longevity but it was in primates that it finally started taking hold. Started working. It was reversing immunodeficiencies. Healing them.”

“You’re not sick,” Thor tells him calmly. Loki huffs at him. Then Thor asks, “What happened?”

“In the end, it was like…” Thor knows he’s trying to find the words for Thor to grasp the concept. “Like squeezing their cells too thin. It ended up eliminating the cells introduced in the vaccines that were meant to heal. It involves a lot of fine-tuning.” He sighs. “I was so close.”

“You didn’t fail. Others just took the time away from you.”

Thor is surprised by the surety of his own words, but they’re the truest ones he can say and they make Loki hum in thought.

\--

“How do you feel? Thor asks, voice soft. They’re eating dinner. Loki’s relaxed enough and Thor is sitting far enough away from him that he has his mask down around his neck as he eats from the can.

“Hungry.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I have four more days, Thor. If I wake up foaming at the bit, you’ll know when I do.”

Thor sets down his food and closes his eyes.

“It’s going to start snowing soon, really snowing. Any day now. You have to burn my body when it’s over. You’re going to have to leave soon, this town is drained—”

Thor slams his fist on the floor and it makes Loki’s jaw jut forth. He sets his own food down.

“I won’t have you getting sick and dying after I’m gone.” Loki says each word slowly, like Thor can’t process the words without it.

“You’re not sick.”

“The heat will eliminate any bacteria—”

“Goddammit Loki! I won’t burn my own brother!”

Thor feels too loud, too large. He hasn’t shouted in so long he feels like he could reach up and touch the rafters, then simply float away. Maybe because he feels empty. He feels like he’s been dying all this time, waiting. Waiting for Loki to say _now_. He stands, taking his can of cold peaches with him.

Thor goes into his old bedroom that night and slams the door behind him.

The wind howls and beats against the boards and walls.


	5. Chapter 5

He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, partly for the sting and partly because it’s the first time they’ve slept in separate rooms in years.

He’s used to Loki’s breathing. To the way his breath hitches on dreams, on nightmares. To the way his voice is choked and wrecked when he takes himself in his own hand in the middle of the night when he thinks Thor is asleep. Though that hasn’t happened in a very long time.

Thor is used to knowing where Loki is, all the time. He’s used to keeping an eye on him, watching out for him. He’s used to keeping Loki alive.

He feels helpless.

He feels useless.

\--

He counts to an hour in his head before he hears Loki walking around outside in the hall. He goes in the kitchen for some indiscernible reason and then he goes back to the living room. Then he’s back in the hall.

The door opens and Thor holds his breath.

“Thor.”

He knows Loki can see he’s awake.

“Thor, you have to be prepared. You have to be ready.”

“I can’t be ready. Never for that.”

Loki steps in front of him and Thor either has to close his eyes or meet Loki’s. He sits up and opts to hold his arms to his chest instead.

Loki crouches, his blanket around his shoulders, and his voice is firm. “This is my fault. I caused the death of billions, but I won’t be the end of you.”

“You always were.”

Loki sucks in a breath but Thor won’t take the words back. They’re too old for that.

“You’re my brother, Loki, and I love you more than some would have said is wise of me.”

Loki goes to his knees and he sags there, arms braced on his thighs.

“I can’t kill you Thor. I can’t live with killing you. I can’t even die with killing you.”

“You’re not going to die, Loki. You aren’t sick.”

“How can you know?” Loki asks, voice breaking.

This is the lowest they’ve been in a long time. This is the lowest they’ve ever been. Thor is reminded of all the times Loki crawled into his bed when they were children. Too afraid of the thunder to realize Thor was afraid of it too, until Loki climbed under the covers beside him.

“How can you?” Thor shoots back.

Loki just goes quiet, face expressionless and half hidden by the mask.

Thor wants to say he’s sorry but instead he says, “I can’t sleep.”

“That’s most nights.”

“Yeah, well.”

Loki is holding his breath and Thor only realizes he can tell because he’s also holding his own.

He spreads his arms, silently asking what he can barely even say at the moment. Loki crawls forward and wraps his arms around Thor’s neck.

\--

They lie facing each other. The mask obscures their breathing, shielding Loki’s breath from him and pushing his own back against his neck.

“Movies.”

“Porn,” Loki whispers.

“Music.”

“Kisses,” Loki murmurs. His thumb traces Thor’s jaw.

Thor buries his face in the curve of Loki’s neck and Loki holds him.

\--

Thor reads to Loki the next day. The entire day. He hasn’t used his voice so much in such a long time that he’s winded after what he assumes is only a few hours. Loki grabs up a can of black olives and hands it over, wordlessly announcing a lunch break.

Thor steals a piece of peach from Loki, scooping it out of his can with two fingers. Loki’s eating with his fingers today and Thor knows that. He wants to show Loki he isn’t afraid of getting sick.

What he’s afraid of is Loki dying.

But he’s confident Loki isn’t sick.

He has to be.

Loki gawks at him but continues eating. His eyebrows draw together, that wicked curve making him look like he’s in pain.

Thor squeezes Loki’s knee gently and takes up his book again.

\--

They sleep nestled together beneath all four blankets most of the next day. They only crawl away when their stomachs growl more loudly than usual. They share a can of yams. Loki no longer bothers calling Thor out on his blatant disregard for what could be infection waiting to happen.

They bury beneath the blankets again, Loki with his arm thrown over Thor’s waist. He’s shivering so Thor rubs his back.

“Turn around,” he murmurs. Loki does.

Thor wraps the blankets more firmly around Loki, one arm beneath his neck and the other hovering over his hip. He hesitates only a moment before inching his fingers just under the hem of Loki’s shirt, pressing against skin. Loki shivers again but he doesn’t say no, so Thor does what he set out to do and snakes his arm up around Loki’s bare torso, hand splayed wide over his heart. He can feel it beating in Loki’s chest, can feel the breath shudder light through his body.

“Your fingers are like ice.”

“Sorry,” Thor mumbles. His nuzzles the back of Loki’s neck, dark hair tickling his cheeks. Loki shifts and he nearly sneezes. He reaches his other arm around Loki’s head and pulls his mask off.

“Thor, no.”

“Really? I thought we passed this.”

“It’s not a fucking kidney stone. We still won’t know for another two days.”

Thor presses his nose to Loki’s nape and breathes him in. It’s been a long time. They’re grimy, but he doesn’t care. “I’ve eaten off your food, slept in your space. I’m doing this right now,” he breathes softly against Loki’s neck. “If I’m going to get sick, we’ll know soon. You won’t get me sick.”

“Since I’m already the end of you, right?” The bite in Loki’s voice is unmistakable.

Thor shakes his head against Loki’s neck. “I was a dog at your heels since you could walk. I taught you how to read. I was fascinated by you. I still am. You being the end of me has always been preferable to anything else. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Thor,” Loki breathes.

“Shh. Get some sleep.”

Thor kisses the back of Loki’s neck and he can feel the shudder run through his brother’s body.

\--

Loki watches him the next day. His gaze lingers and Thor feels it prickle under his skin as he walks around. They really never have anything else to do.

They eat and Thor has to remind Loki he’s holding food in his hand before he tears his eyes away.

He reads to Loki again, goes through an entire book. He stops once for dinner.

“What are you afraid of?” Loki asks him as Thor finally closes the book.

“I’m afraid of losing you. But you know that.”

\--

The rest of the night passes, long and slow.

They lie awake, staring at each other.

Loki isn’t wearing his mask anymore.

\--

The next day is decidedly light. They don’t linger on discussion, and they don’t bring up the fact something significant is upon them.

It’s the last good day they have together before they’ll know. Loki hasn’t shown any signs suggesting he could be sick, so Thor allows himself to hope.

After breakfast, Loki immediately asks, “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Thor says, not hesitating.

“Tell me something from our childhood.”

Thor hums, thinking. “I failed high school Biology on purpose because I liked having you help me with the homework.”

“Thor! You had to take double the classes your last year.”

He shrugs. “Your turn. Truth or dare.”

Loki chews on his lower lip, then juts his jaw forth. “Truth.”

Thor can’t remember the last time Loki said truth.

The question comes almost immediately. Something he’s always wondered. Loki is waiting patiently.

“When did you know? You got home so fast. I wasn’t expecting you until the next afternoon, at best. When I got out of class, I thought I’d not see you again. That something would happen to you.” The words drift off and Thor finally shuts his mouth. He sees Loki staring at him.

“The night before. I had a call from a man named Selvig in Sweden. An almost-colleague. Someone training under him was a little too handsy and liked to talk. I left as soon as I could, once I knew. The lab was in chaos.” He pauses and Thor tries to absorb the information. An entire day with that knowledge… “I don’t know who fired first, in the end.”

“We should be grateful the planet didn’t break in half.”

Loki huffs. “Who says it didn’t?”

\--

Thor never spends long thinking on the rest of the world. It inevitably leads to thoughts of his parents and what could have happened—what probably happened—and it’s never a good place to be in.

Loki never speaks of them. He’d distanced himself ever since he found out he’d been adopted.

It had upended Loki’s world but for Thor, it changed nothing.

\--

Their last night they huddle together, Thor’s arms around Loki with Loki rubbing his hands between them, wrapped in the blankets. It’s become a science at this point. It’s the most sleep they’ve gotten in years.

The wind is back to howling outside and this time the swaying limbs of dead trees can be heard crashing to the ground in the distance. Thor knows there will be new debris littering the streets when he next steps outside.

Loki’s breathing is jilted, short. He has his hands gathered together between their chests and he’s huffing breath onto them. He’s shivering again.

Thor wants to kick himself for never realizing Loki shivered so violently when they went to sleep. He had calmed in Thor’s arms the last few nights and he wants to weep at how it could have been like this since it started.

Thor offers his breath to warm Loki’s hands, breathing a long draw of a hot air onto them. Loki lets his head fall forward to Thor’s shoulder, his nose cold against the line of his throat.

Thor is drawn by the curve of Loki’s neck. It takes him a long time, too long, to bend forward enough to press his mouth against it. Loki goes tense and then sighs against his neck. It makes Thor shiver this time.

He breathes against Loki’s neck, hands rubbing circles into his shoulders and back. He hasn’t done this in years. It feels like decades.

“Tomorrow,” Loki whispers.

Thor nods. His hands go to reach under Loki’s ratty shirts and trace up bare skin, feeling the ribs and the clavicle of his left side before trailing back down. He smoothes his fingers over the bony point of his pelvis and then over the stomach. He taps Loki’s belly button and it draws a weak laugh from his brother.

Loki is breathing hard.

“Thor,” he says.

Thor trails back down smooth, cold skin and inches under the waist of his pants. He finds Loki soft when he cups him. Loki grabs Thor’s wrist and turns his head up. His eyes find Thor’s and they glint in the dark.

Thor is content to just hold Loki. To feel him there, in his arms, his hands. He can feel each breath enter and leave Loki’s body. Can feel the erratic pump of blood through Loki’s heart. Can feel the shift of flesh as he moves his thighs slightly apart. It’s the most intimate exchange he feels they’ve ever shared.

Thor takes Loki in his fist and starts stroking. Loki’s breath catches.

“Thor, no.” Thor stops. “We still don’t know.”

“Let me do this for you. Please,” Thor says. It sounds like a plea even to his own ears.

“What if you do get sick? What if I do die—”

He rises on an elbow and leans to look down at his brother. He squeezes his fist gently and Loki’s neck arches. A breath leaves him, sharp. Thor leans down and hovers just over Loki’s mouth.

“Then you won’t have to wait long for me, will you?”

Loki’s eyes shine and he swallows thickly. He works for a moment at words so Thor waits.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Loki whispers. He’s shaking his head just barely.

“Don’t be,” Thor tells him.

He kisses Loki and Loki kisses back.

\--

Thor wakes before Loki does. He can’t tell how long they’ve slept. They’ve told time by the amount of soft, hazy light that manages its way in through the small space between the boards of their front window. Thor’s thankful they slept in the living room that night. It’s afternoon. They slept late, and it’s a wonder.

Then reality seeps back in and he realizes with a start that Loki is still in his arms. He hasn’t woken.

He panics.

Thor grasps Loki’s chin between his fingers and turns his face upward, and Thor doesn’t see any foam. Breath rushes soft and steady against his face and he could cry.

He kisses Loki’s cheek and Loki hums in his sleep.

Thor settles back down, holding Loki more firmly in his arms. Loki’s fingers twitch against his neck where one arm is trapped between their chests.

He lets Loki sleep.

\--

Loki wakes slowly. He blinks a few times at Thor’s neck and then he’s craning his neck back, yawning.

“I feel dead. Stiff.”

Thor smiles at him.

Loki realizes what he’s said and he narrows his eyes, then flips over to spy the light from the window.

“It’s afternoon. Loki, it’s the middle of the day,” Thor says. He can’t keep the joy from his voice.

Loki is quiet for so long that Thor starts smoothing his hair between his fingers. It’s gotten long again, his too. He’ll need to dig out the one pair of nearly-broken scissors they have.

“I don’t understand. He spit on me. It got in my mouth. Thor…I don’t—” Loki grasps for an explanation but cannot find one. He sits up and Thor follows him, his hands dropping to his lap. “Thor, I’m supposed to be sick. Did I cough in my sleep? Did I piss myself, or worse? Oh—”

He’s wrenching the blankets off and tossing them aside, hands hastily pulling and prodding at his clothing. Thor is shaking his head, his smile hurting his face. He grabs Loki’s wrist, then the other, holding his hands.

“Loki. Loki,” he repeats. Loki is breathing hard again. “It’s fine. You slept through the night.”

“How would you know, you fell asleep too didn’t you?”

“I would have woken up. I always wake up.” And that’s the truth.

Loki shakes his head, disbelieving.

“Two more days. It could take a week to set it. We don’t _know_.”

Thor sighs and closes his mouth. He kisses Loki once on the forehead and he coaxes Loki back into lying down for a while longer. They doze and rise for a meal, then go back to napping.

\--

The day passes slowly and Loki doesn’t cough. He doesn’t sneeze. He doesn’t even sniff.

Thor listens to his breathing, and it stays even. As even as it ever was. The change in the air was always hard on Loki. It made him breathe harder, suck in large gulps of air. It always feels thick to Thor’s lungs so he can’t imagine what Loki must feel every time he takes a breath.

Thor reads the beginning of another book after dinner until Loki puts his hand on it and removes it from Thor’s hands. He sets it down and they go to bed.

Thor doesn’t sleep but he observes Loki while he stays awake.

Loki only wakes once to piss and then he’s crawling back to Thor’s arms, burying his nose in his chest and breathing deep lungfuls of him in. He notices Thor was already awake and Thor can see it in his eyes, but he says nothing. He sleeps the rest of the night and most of the next day.

Loki is fine.

The next day passes, and the next after that.

Loki stays fine. He’s healthy.

\--

“The old man wasn’t sick. The girl could have died from something else,” Thor tells him, a few days later.

“Maybe,” Loki murmurs. Thor is rubbing his shoulders, trying to soothe and knead away countless years of tension and guilt from his body. Loki sags under his touch and it’s a comfort to Thor, to know it helps, however little.

But even Loki can’t deny it’s almost been two weeks since they went to that house. Two weeks for the virus to settle in his cells and take hold. Two weeks to begin foaming at the mouth and his skin to rot, ashen and cold.

But nothing happens and Loki is content to go on with their days.

\--

Thor knows it can’t be like this for the rest of their days.

He knows that eventually, one of them will die, and he’s selfish for wanting that moment to be shared. He doesn’t want to leave Loki alone and he doesn’t want to go on without Loki. He wouldn’t know what to do.

He knows that eventually, Loki’s easy smile will fade once more to the lengthy stares out their window. He knows they’ll have to leave soon. Take to the pavement and the highways and find somewhere warmer. He wants to stay here, in their town, in their home. But he doesn’t know how many other houses have been saved from looters and how many more hold people waiting with weapons.

Thor knows that eventually there will come a _now_ and that moment will leave him broken.

But right now, in the present moment, he has Loki with him, alive and well. His brother is smiling, and the deep bags under his eyes don’t seem as vivid. They have food enough to last a few months if they’re very careful, books to read, and blankets to wrap themselves in.

They have each other for one more day and it’s enough.


End file.
